Startup of the week | Vidooly- the video intelligence platform using analytics
By Srishti Deoras
Team Vidooly at a Outing at Kingdom of dreams in Gurgaon
The one of its kind video analytics and marketing company, Vidooly, has been providing tools for online video creators, multi channel networks, digital focused brands and agencies since 2014. Well, it might have spent just two years in the industry, but it has already been proving its uniqueness from its global counterparts as it caters to multiple stakeholders of the online video ecosystem unlike most others.
Founded by Subrat Kar, Nishant Radia and Ajay Mishra, the idea of founding Vidooly was conceptualized over a friendly lunch meet in Noida when they randomly started discussing the possibilities in the field of online video. This is when, all three video enthusiasts saw a tremendous opportunity in this ecosystem and Vidooly came into existence.
What is the tech behind Vidooly?
Claiming to use analytics in its working, AIM tried to know how exactly is Vidooly using Artificial Intelligence and Analytics? Here's how it is. With a drastic increase in the number of people connected to the internet, there has been a steady increase in the quality of connections and in the number of audience in the online video space. In such a scenario, Vidooly believes that it is more important than ever to understand the behaviour of the digital audience.
"With so much viewership happening everyday, online video creators and brands need to understand data to understand their audience. We at Vidooly have been tracking the data signals of around 15 Billion video views and 100 million audience members every day! That's a lot of data", said Subrat, the CEO of Vidooly. Subrat has been an entrepreneur and used to work at Jabong before taking a stint at Vidooly where he also looks after the Sales and Business Development.
Vidooly uses this goldmine of data to predict the behaviour of audience depending on the need of the customers. "We even have built our own custom technology that can predict the virality of content. Our brand solution tool has a feature that tells them which videos are about to trend in the days to come. This is an invaluable piece of information that brands can use to strategically advertise and get the maximum ROI for their spend", added Subrat.
So, how has been the growth story?
With an interesting concept in hand, the journey has been exciting and difficult at the same time, avers Nishant who takes the position of CMO and is in charge of marketing piece. "Vidooly started off with a focus just on YouTube and then slowly started becoming more platform agnostic. Right now, Vidooly's big data engine tracks data from all the four major social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube", he said. Nishant has earlier worked with Headstrong.
While starting off in 2014, the concept of online video ecosystem in India was still at a nascent stage and after overcoming the biggest challenge of making potential customers understand the importance of data and analytics, Vidooly has come a long way. It has grown from a team of around 5 people to 40 people within a span of 15 months with a swanky office space in Noida. Seed funded initially by Bessemer Venture Partners, the company has great plans in store for 2017. Form social video, it now plans to spread its wings towards Video On Demand/ OTT as well.
"Exciting things are happening in the field of online video in India now. With the entry of global VOD giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime and the emergence of homegrown OTTs like Hotstar and Voot, the audience is spoilt for choices. That's why it is absolutely necessary for brands who want to advertise on these platforms to understand their viewing behaviour to get the best bang for their bucks. YouTube and Facebook video is also gaining massive traction in India given the increased internet connectivity and quality. So, we at Vidooly believe that we're at the right place at the right time", concludes Ajay, who is the CTO and heads the tech team.
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Srishti currently works as Associate Editor at Analytics India Magazine. When not covering the analytics news, editing and writing articles, she could be found reading or capturing thoughts into pictures.